Throughout the book, Anastasia is slowly exposed to Christian’s “dark” world and his “Red Room of Pain,” which is just a room with a bunch of sex toys in it, but apparently we have to get all silly about it. I mean, we don’t call the kitchen the “White Room of Yummy” or the living room the “TV Room of Couching.”

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"A riddle or the cricket's cryIs to doubt a fit reply." - William Blake

And since Gilbert Godfried is the voice of 1) Iago the parrot in the Disney "Aladdin" movies and 2) Digit the cyberbird on "CyberChase" on PBS which is a kids show that teaches math concepts the idea of a comic avian reading this is even more bizarre/entertaining

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"I wish they would remember that the charge to Peter was "Feed my sheep", not "Try experiments on my rats", or even "Teach my performing dogs new tricks". - C. S. Lewis

I accidently clicked this thread from my work computer, hopefully I don't get fired.

The way things are now you could get fired for clicking on Christian websites.

Years ago I used to write a breastfeeding newsletter and would do some research/surfing online at work. Anyone looking at my online search history woulda thought I had a breast and nipple fetish but I never got blocked. Now I can't even access Overstock.com but still can Google breasts. Go figure.

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On the spiritual path somewhere between the Simpsons and St. Theophan the Recluse, but I still can't see the Springfield city limits sign yet.

So, the so-called 'romance novel' genre has been around for quite awhile. But it seems there's a new type of romance novel/media that's slowly been seducing it's way to the top called 'Mommy Porn' or 'Erotic Novels'. It probably started earlier, but I think it sorta took off with the 'Sex In The City' craze. Now, there's a new novel out there that has almost every woman from their 20's to their 50's clamoring for it. It's reportedly been banned in several city libraries only to be readmitted. And if you're one of these women who's dying to read it- there's a waiting list at almost every city library. The novel is called '50 Shades of Grey' and it's not just steamy, by the authors' own admission it's raunchy.

Now, I'm no prude but it seems to me that this newest craze might be just as dangerous as other types of pornography. For decades, the porn industry has largely targeted men but this stuff is largely written by women and for women, specifically the working/corporate woman.

I wonder if this newest craze, like the novel '50 Shades of Grey', is OK for Christians to read, or is it every bit as dangerous as other types of porn? Some conclude that it's not really pornography and that it gets men and women (specifically husbands and wives) discussing the wants and needs of BOTH partners, while other conclude that, because of the explicit nature and the fact that rarely, if ever, are the main characters married, it's smut and should be avoided by Christians.

What would be the Orthodox response to these questions and accusations? I see Christian women reading this novel and watching these types of shows all the time and am somewhat concerned. To get an idea of just how popular this particular novel is, go to Amazon books and look at the top sellers.

So, what say you?

My wife started to read it. Its complete trash. Personally, I think it is on a level lower than actual pornography. We all know how reading something sticks in your mind longer than seeing the same thing. It's extremely, EXTREMELY graphic! She showed me one paragraph, that was enough.

90% of the time Romance Novels are just porn, but it is porn geared towards women and hiding under the 'Romance' label so that women feel classy because they do not want to accept that they are looking at porn. It is fair to mention though that this has been around for ages; erotic literature existed in ancient times, in many Orthodox countries too by the way, and now it exists in modern times. In any case, I find novels like this to be detrimental to women because it gives them an unrealistic standard of what their relationship should be like and their expectations for their man become way too high. I've met women who truly believe that they are princesses and that men should treat them like royalty, and not surprisingly they were huge romance novel fans. Maybe this is why so many marriages and relationships are failing, because of unrealistic standards from certain women. On the other hand, men do the same thing with their porn from a sexual point of view. They make their woman feel insecure or have too high of expectations for what she should look like or be capable of doing in bed because of their porn.

James--I am in awe at your knowledge of these matters at your tender age of 16. If I had been as knowledgeable and wise as you, I would have surely avoided all sorts of woes.

Normally, I would disregard someone's knowledge at his age, but modern times and my occupation have revealed to me children younger than he know more about this than most adults, which is to be blamed on adults. Poor parenting and lack of interest or caring about children and this spreads in the school system from one kid to the next. He may be right in his assessment. I am continually stunned at what children know these days and not much shocks me.

Literary porn is pretty hard to discern. A book can officially be non-erotica, but in reality it is soft porn. Sex scenes don't make a book porn. I have been reading the Song of Fire and Ice series (aka Game of Thrones) and there are sex scenes aplenty in the series. They are stupid sex scenes. (Ironically the television series takes out certain sex series and adds in others seemingly at random. They took a book with a good number of short sex scenes, eliminated a bunch, only to add in others that are even worse/explicit. So I am not watching that series anymore) But to some extent they give you some insight into a character and have something to do with the plot. To some extent even Twilight was soft porn in the way women read it. And that book didn't even have much (if any, I haven't read the series and never plan to) sex in it. This 50 shades was inspired by Twilight afterall.

I have struggled with this issue since around age 10 when my reading level was high enough that I needed to be wary of content. I think you have to be captured fairly young to find much of the erotica sexy. Phrases like "dewy center" just make me think of incontinence. Many, many Christian women read romance that is essentially soft porn without so much as a blink of the eye.

The problem I have with soft porn romance is that I think it is (in it's own way) much more dangerous than actual porn. Soft porn can not spice up a marriage in any healthy way just like regular porn can't. Soft porn and erotica can cause a woman to wish and desire an idea that is unachievable. A man that actually behaved like Christian Gray (I think that is the character's name in 50 shades) would be an awful partner. He would be an even worse husband and father. A woman can read these books and go to bed "in the mood" and actually have sex with her husband physically but will not be thinking of him when they are having sex. Emotionally/spiritually she just isn't there. That is dangerous for a marriage. The man will think everything is OK because she is having sex with him. But she could loathe him and just be using him as a living/breathing sex toy. That sounds good in theory to many a man. But no one wants to simply be used for sex in a marriage, man or woman. Everyone wants that connection that is deeper than sex when they are having sex. Otherwise you feel like you would after eating an entire cake. You would enjoy the flavor while eating, but afterward you just feel sick and sort of hallow. Not to be crass; but sex (and especially orgasm) is when a person is the most vulnerable. That vulnerability can't be there completely unless people trust each other. So if you think your marriage bed isn't up to par it isn't because you need to "spice it up" it is because you need to be more honest in your communications outside the marriage bed. You don't need to read/watch other people having sex to do it right yourself. That would be like watching NASCAR in order to learn how to drive better. The two are similar, but NOT the same.

Jane Austen could be considered "romance." I will allow my daughters to read that if they are interested. But modern teen/tween writing is just getting worse. I must say that as a parent it is very difficult to know what is suitable for my daughter's consumption. She consumes books at such a rapid pace I just can't read them all before she can. So I allow her to read far more adult classics than I do modern fiction.

How dark is contemporary fiction for teens? Darker than when you were a child, my dear: So dark that kidnapping and pederasty and incest and brutal beatings are now just part of the run of things in novels directed, broadly speaking, at children from the ages of 12 to 18.

The Rainbow Party, an offering from Simon Pulse, a young-adult division of Simon & Schuster, takes place on a single day, in which a tough little sophomore named Gin issues invitations to a party at which she and five of her friends will perform oral sex on the lucky guests, a group of popular boys. The girls will each wear a different color of lipstick, so that when a boy has completed the circuit, his penis will bear the colors of the rainbow. The party is to take place after school, to last about an hour and a half—including time for chitchat—and to conclude before Gin's father returns home from work.

If our teens are being written this type of drivel, what is being written for mommy?

The Rainbow Party, an offering from Simon Pulse, a young-adult division of Simon & Schuster, takes place on a single day, in which a tough little sophomore named Gin issues invitations to a party at which she and five of her friends will perform oral sex on the lucky guests, a group of popular boys. The girls will each wear a different color of lipstick, so that when a boy has completed the circuit, his penis will bear the colors of the rainbow. The party is to take place after school, to last about an hour and a half—including time for chitchat—and to conclude before Gin's father returns home from work.

If our teens are being written this type of drivel, what is being written for mommy?

That was written in response to a scare that rainbow parties were actually happening and were a bad thing, since that definitely sounds like an actual thing high school students would do, and not something a 15 year old thought of while masturbating.

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"Some have such command of their bowels, that they can break wind continuously at pleasure, so as to produce the effect of singing."- St. Augustine of Hippo

There's a vid on youtube of comedian Gilbert Godfried doing a dramatic reading of some passages. It's hilarious not just because of the way Gilbert reads it (he does it rather straight), but because the writing itself.

Darn, I could only find short clips of it. A deeper search brought up vids that have since been removed.

If I were I a better man I would have resisted clicking on this link. But the lure of Gilbert Gottfried was too much. I was laughing so hard that my wife came in the room and asked me what was so funny. I had to make up a lie.

Selam

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"There are two great tragedies: one is to live a life ruled by the passions, and the other is to live a passionless life."Selam, +GMK+

“The only thing that upset me was the quality of writing,” said Elliott, who read the book about a month ago and considered it no better than your average beach novel.

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If you will, you can become all flame.Extra caritatem nulla salus.In order to become whole, take the "I" out of "holiness". सर्वभूतहितἌνω σχῶμεν τὰς καρδίας"Those who say religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion is." -- Mohandas GandhiY dduw bo'r diolch.